


The Fire Pit

by RunningAuthor26



Category: Yellowstone (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 21:14:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29160264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RunningAuthor26/pseuds/RunningAuthor26
Summary: Rip is struggling after Beth's attack (the first one.) This takes place around "Enemies By Monday."
Relationships: Beth Dutton/Rip Wheeler
Comments: 4
Kudos: 27





	The Fire Pit

**Author's Note:**

> Re-watching their bar scene in "Long Black Train," I can't help think that it wasn't the first time Rip used that line on Beth. Even though she's Beth and five steps ahead, Rip looked like he had heard her response before as well. Same goes for the scene at the end of "Sins of the Father," when he said "well, if you want some company..." seemed like they'd been there before in their relationship.
> 
> Maybe I'm crazy, but I'm cool with it. 
> 
> I hope y'all can enjoy and that the flashbacks aren't too distracting.

Beth looked at her phone and her breath caught. If anyone watching her knew Beth, they would have gotten a glimpse at a brief chink in her armor, more of a hairline fissure, but a chink all the same. She recovered more quickly than it happened and excused herself from the meeting. 

“I need you.” Was all it said. She recalled only three times Rip having said that to her; only once since they were adults. Even that was a long time ago.

“Where are you?” 

“Fire pit.” 

Without hesitation, Beth responded, “Don’t leave. I’ll be there in 30 minutes. Text me if you want me to bring anything.”

She wasn’t sure if her heart stopped, but she knew her breathing did. The culmination of memories that “the fire pit” held for Rip and Beth’s past was more akin to an inferno...put out to pasture... at the far end of a long dirt road...long since abandoned but nowhere near forgotten. To put it another way, calling that place the “fire pit” was their dark humor for a five alarm fire in their world. It wasn’t so much a place as it was a plea. 

Beth gathered her things from work, grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the back of her dry bar, and rushed out the door. She’d stop for food on the way home. He’d be hungry eventually. 

Fighting the urge to call him once she was on her way, she thought back on the previous times they had used those words. 

The two times when they were teenagers were pretty standard, he had used it twice, and she had used it about ten times as much. As an adult it was the first time he took someone to the train station. Rip coming to terms with that aspect of getting things done for her father and then compartmentalizing the brand over his heart from who he was in his heart took them both a long time to flesh out together.

When she arrived at the cabin, she felt a nostalgic wave overcome her; he was sitting on the ground with his back leaning against a felled tree: one knee bent, one out straight. His head was down, but the small fire he had built kicked up a feigned light on his face. He looked up at her, and the shadows danced all the more. The choreography of his fiery hauntings both past and present flickered over his features. He seemed almost in a trance-like state, not even turning his body towards her. Even when they verbally sparred, something she loved as much as he loathed, he always met her square. She quietly sat down beside him and lost herself within the flicker of the flames. Who Beth was tonight was one merely of ensuring Rip wasn’t alone. 

She winces at the thought of his loneliness, but Rip perceives it as a shiver against the heat warming her front dueling with the cool air, busy with its own choreography, dancing along her back with the icy desolation of her past and present. Regardless of the cause, her shiver pulled Rip out of the fire’s embrace as he eloquently said, 

“Shit Beth, I brought a blanket for you but left it in the truck.” 

Beth looked warmly at him and said, “I’ll get it. You still need to be taking it easy on those wounds.” Rip’s eyes reflected the fire again, but there was something else there too, something she wasn’t ready to acknowledge quite yet, so she kissed his cheek and said, “I’ll be right back.”

As she got up, Rip remained seated but turned his body towards her for the first time, studying her as she struggled movement against her own slowly healing wounds. She was trying to be brave for him, but he had watched her walk away from him so many times he’d notice a difference if her boots were half a size too small, much less if she’d just been beaten within an inch of her life a couple of days ago. He lost himself briefly in the imagery, so raw in his memory. Hell, it wasn’t even a memory yet. It would have to stop taking over his vision for a memory to claim it. God he wished it would. 

When he snapped out of it, he could no longer see Beth. He stood up as a panic consumed him, one that drove away the searing pain in his side. He blinked several times trying to clear his vision and could plainly see Beth coming back towards him. Rip lowered himself back down to settle next to the log wondering if she really had been out of sight, or if he was just going crazy from lack of sleep and his innate fear. Hell, maybe all three. “Fucking fire pit,” he grumbled.

She returned with the blanket and whiskey, handing the bottle to Rip as she unfolded the blanket, silently asking if he wanted to share. Lost in a distant memory he replied, “Nah honey... brought that for you.” She gratefully immersed herself in the warmth he had once again brought to her, even if only temporarily. She was well aware that Rip had yet to look her in the eye. 

Out of self preservation, he always looked her in the eye first. What he found there was the conduit to what he would let her see of him, tell him what she wanted from him, and immediately inform him of whether he needed to stay or to walk away...for both their sake. 

He gave a sweet but humorless laugh, “Wild Turkey. Our first taste of alcohol.”

“I had other choices, but given the circumstance, I thought it appropriate." She rubbed his back with one hand and gestured toward an old hickory not too far away. "You held my hair and rubbed my back right by that tree over there.” 

Rip gave another small laugh, “You threw up on my boots, Beth.” Beth nudged his shoulder with hers, “Another first but definitely not the last.”

“No. no it wasn’t. It wasn’t the most impressive either.” he managed to chuckle.

“I still can’t believe no one found out we took the bunkhouse’s whiskey..”

“Oh, they knew. That mean ol’ motherfucker beat the shit out of me the next day. Lloyd didn’t even bother savin’ me from that one. He knew I deserved it. Hell, I knew it...Worth it.”  
Beth playfully hit him on the arm, “You said your horse threw you when you were learnin’ to rope!” Rip feigned pain but laughed in agreement. God she loved his laugh. 

“Ahhh, Beth, that’s one beating I’d never mind gettin’, shit, spending a night with you like that.” The smile on his face was starting to reach his words so she took a chance.

She was looking into his eyes, willing them to meet her gaze, anything to let her know he was okay. Rip forgot himself and met her eyes for the briefest of seconds. She couldn’t get a read before he immersed himself back towards the fire pit. The flames were all but embers now. Almost inaudibly, Rip huskily said, “Thank you.” She didn’t say anything just ran her hand through his hair and down his back.

After a couple of minutes watching a dwindling fire, Beth suggested moving to the cabin. Off of Rip’s hesitation she offered, “I told Dad I was staying here tonight. I gotta say, since that night not getting any pushback from my father regarding anything is definitely a perk.” When he didn’t say anything she tried levity. “I mean, I’ve had vodka for breakfast for the last four days, and what’s he said? Nothing.” With her arm around his shoulders, she gently rocked him briefly side-to-side. “Come’ on, let’s go inside.”

Under the warmth and light of the cabin, Beth got her first good look at Rip. 

He had been able to take very little from his past life, and most of that he had to drop while he was on the run. What survived were two pictures: One a picture of him with his mom and little brother. The second of his grandfather with part of his platoon during Vietnam. He had told her it was the only thing his mother had ever given him that was small enough to carry. Rip resembled the face staring back from that photo more than he did himself. He looked like a battle-worn and aged version himself. He looked like a relic.

“You look like shit, Rip.” 

Rip had his hands on his hips. He’d succumb to letting go if he met her eyes so he was inclined to focus on a spot in the far corner of the room. He took a deep breath and tried to focus on the memory. They were 16. Beth was like a wild animal lost in her anger at...hell who was it? Jamie? Her Dad? Coulda just as easily been her teacher. He couldn’t remember, didn’t matter. Whoever it was didn’t put the anger and caged fear there, they just picked at her until it made her mad. What he did remember was that he was an easy target for a vase while he was standing in that corner. He unconsciously let his hands slide up to the tops of Beth’s arms, laughed, and looked down at Beth to share their memory. He fell into her just like they always do with each other when they allowed these little moments of openness. Distantly he could feel her arms wrap around him and tell him he was ok and that she was there, but physically he shook his head to clear it and physically pushed her away from him.

Beth raised her voice at his denial of her, “Hey, you don’t get to do that tonight. Tonight we aren’t all of the hairy bullshit that pulls us together and pushes us apart.” She steps up closer to him, but he still won’t square up to her and let her in. “You’re the one who said our words Rip.” She steps around, forcing him to square up to her. She puts a finger in his chest and says almost accusingly, “you are.” She knew she was pushing him; she also knew the line and was nowhere near it. A refreshing change of pace for her. She could usually pitch a tent on the line and just hunt, cook, and eat for days in all directions. She guided him softly to the sofa, held his face in her hands, “Tell me.”

Rip took a deeply reluctant breath. “Since that night, it’s the same as it was after my Mom and little brother.” Rip rings his hands together and Beth holds them in hers, trying her hardest to ground him in the room with her, to let him know that she was safe, and his words were just a memory. He takes a lighter but just as long breath and continues, “I haven’t slept since I left your side. I can’t keep anything down. I smell the coffee that was still brewing in your office rather than the coffee that’s in my cup. Every time I close my eyes to try to get my shit together, I’m right back in your office. I can see that motherfucker pinning you to the table, and that gun to your….Jesus Beth.” Rip completely let go then. "The anger and fear is consuming me, Beth.”

Beth crawls into his lap, and they hold onto each other like the lifeline they are. 

“I almost lost you.” 

“Well ‘almost is tough to measure ‘cause almost doesn’t matter.’”

Rip gave a half-laugh in recognition. He looked up at the ceiling and back down, “He told you that too, huh?” 

Beth smoothed his beard, and said, “No, baby. You did.” He looked up at her with questioning eyes, “and you’re the only reason that I’m alive today. For so many different reasons.”

Since we’re being honest, I haven’t slept since you left either. You leaving for the bunkhouse hurt me, but you saying why 'before I get used to this,' haunts me more because I know you did it to protect yourself from me." Rip started to protest, but Beth silently stopped him. "When I said the other night on the roof ‘someone could be walking the clouds right next to someone enduring eternal damnation,’ I was talking about you and me. Loving you and wanting to be with you Rip; that’s a done deal. I’m yours. I just...don’t know if I deserve to be happy. And you’re the only thing in my life that truly makes me whole and happy. I struggle feeling like you’re a future that I’ve earned.”

“I’ll be honest, Beth. I’m trying to understand. What I do know is that my past, present, and future is loving you with everything I am. Everything else is...protecting your father and this family to protect you. I’m not pushing you, Beth. I’ll be here.”

“Patiently as always.”

Rip yawned as he sleepily ran his fingers through Beth’s hair. She looked up at him with drowsy eyes and asked, “Think you can sleep?”

“For days, I could also eat for days, but I’ll gladly settle for sleep.”

“I picked up your favorite pizza from Red Tractor before I left town. I put it in the oven to stay warm; probably cold by now, but that never stopped us before.” That got him. He smiled his feral smile...her smile... and by way of thanks said, “You look good in neon.” Without hesitation Beth smiled, lifted one shoulder towards him and touched her cheek on it. 

“Who doesn’t?”

As Rip got the pizza, Beth got the plates and poured the whiskey. In silence they both thought back on the first time they shared those words. It was the summer before Beth had left for college. She was on a date, and the guy blew it which wasn’t hard to do with Beth. Something he had done had made her feel vulnerable which pissed her off. She wasn’t going to take what she considered a weakness home with her so she asked Home to come to her. 

When Rip walked into Red Tractor, Beth was drinking a beer at the bar. She was watching the door when he walked in and pulled up the barstool next to her. “You almost have that sexy cowboy entry down, Rip. 

“Oh yeah?” 

“Almost”

The bartender looked at Rip sideways, “What can I get ya?” 

“Coors please.” 

“Can I see some ID?” 

Beth just rolled her eyes at him, “Don’t be an asshole, Chris. Get him the fucking beer.” Chris did as he was told.

There was a local band playing and Beth turned around to watch them. Rip did the same. With the cigarette smoke hazed lights down low, her beauty was amplified by the reds and blues of the neon lights scattered around the wall. Rip took a long pull from his beer, leaned into Beth and said, “You look good in neon.” 

“That’s all you got?” 

“What do you mean, ‘that’s all you got?’ That’s good stuff.”

“That line would only work on your hand, Rip.” 

Rip shyly tipped his head down, back up again, and laughed, adjusted his Stetson and said with gravel in his voice, “well...I’ma stick with it. One day I’ll prove ya' wrong.” 

That threw Beth, Rip saw it, but she recovered quickly enough. She mimicked him, throwing the attention away from her and back on him, “‘You look good in neon?’ Who doesn’t? YOU look good in neon.”

Rip dipped his head again with a laugh, placed his hand over his heart in feigned pain, and immediately said, “Honey I look good everywhere.” 

Beth genuinely laughed. To Rip, her laugh was the only music he needed to hear. He cheered her up, and that made Rip’s world tip and spin just a little bit faster. 

Beth squared up to him and confessed, “I’m gonna miss you, ya know.”

“Well if you want some company…”

“I will.” They shared another smile. 

This time when he fell into the present, he sank into Beth’s arms, pulled her close, and kissed the top of her head. 

This time and almost inaudibly, it was Beth who huskily said, “Thank you."


End file.
